Bristol is to be at the heart of a major project to boost the creative economy across the South West and South Wales. Led by The University of the West of England (UWE), the Research and Enterprise in Arts and Creative Technologies Hub (REACT) will act as a knowledge exchange project bringing together a wide range of creative industry partners from entrepreneurs to academics, technologists to artists.
It will underpin Bristol's already burgeoning creative sector – the city has a good track record in developing partnerships and the building blocks for many of the 70 schemes the hub will create over the next few years are already in place.
The REACT will be based in the city's Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio, developing further its existing partnership with UWE's Digital Cultures Research Centre. This unique city-centre studio, established in 2008, brings together artists, technologists and academics to explore the future of creative technologies.
UWE is teaming up with the universities of Bristol, Exeter, Bath and Cardiff to create the hub – one of four across the UK being set up by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which is investing £16m in them over four years.
The hubs will have the task of building new partnerships and entrepreneurial capacity in the creative economy and increasing the number of arts and humanities researchers actively engaged in research-based knowledge exchange.
Professor Paul Gough, UWE deputy vice-chancellor said, "This is an outstanding result for the universities and for all our partners across the South West. The hub will generate many brilliant and exciting projects that will have a direct impact on the creative economy, on businesses and education."
The Hub will be directed by Professor Jon Dovey and Clare Reddington of Watershed will act as executive producer for REACT.
She said, "The Creative Economy Hub will expand our network of partners and strengthen our mission to share, develop and showcase exemplary ideas and talent. The hub's activities will centre on an extended Sandbox programme, first developed by Watershed's subsidiary iShed in 2008. We will produce 70 collaborative projects spanning heritage, broadcasting, digital media, publishing and beyond, further strengthening Watershed's position as a leader in the field of creative and digital innovation."
Co-directors Professor Robert Bickers (University of Bristol) and Nick Kaye (University of Exeter) will be joined by knowledge exchange champions Dr Dane Stanton Fraser at the University of Bath and Professor Ian Hargreaves at the University of Cardiff.
The UK's creative economy – which includes the creative industries as well as museums, galleries, libraries, orchestras and theatres – is, relative to GDP, probably the largest creative sector in the world. As the major focus of AHRC's new knowledge exchange and impact strategy for 2011-2015, the hubs will encourage significant interactions between research and the creative economy which will generate wider social, economic and cultural benefits.
